


Miracles.

by Beabaseball (beabaseball)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Gen, Memory Alteration, Other, POV Sans, Platonic Relationships, Sans Doesn't Remember Resets, Sans Has Issues, Sans Needs A Hug, Siblings, Time Travel, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Sans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-06-05 04:44:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6689776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beabaseball/pseuds/Beabaseball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans doesn't know what's happening. Sans doesn't know what's going on. He never really does. Not anymore, if he ever did. </p><p>There's things happening around the edges of his vision that he can't quite place. There's a feeling he just can't shake that something is going slowly, horribly wrong. There's a world worth living in, but it's not this one. </p><p>There's a human in the underground, and Sans knows they're all going to die.</p><p>An Underfell Pacifist Run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta'd by askull4everyoccasion and drowninginfelines in differnet montsh in differnte capapciietst

Sans was the eldest. He should’ve been the one protecting Papyrus. He should’ve been able to protect Papyrus. He should’ve.

But he couldn’t. He hadn’t. He’d never protected Papyrus from anything.

The only reason they survived long enough for Papyrus to grow strong enough to protect them both was because of—

…they didn’t say his name. Not anymore.

(Sans still remembered the _click click click_ of words on bony fingers, remembered scrambling into corners and clawing the walls, blubbering _wait please wait please wait_ )

Papyrus didn’t talk about those days. Carried on like they’d never happened. So Sans didn’t bring them up. Thinking about the Doc sent something cold and slimy running down his spine, and the whole memory of that last day just made his bones shudder.

Because that day, one day, Sans walked into the lab like usual, and the fucker was gone without a trace. Sans walked out of the lab that day, and the fucker was gone without a trace.

Just. Poof. One day there, the next day gone. Not that Sans exactly went around asking if anyone had seen Crazy Fucker around, but usually you’d catch people avoiding his lab, or at the very least, whispering a bit and laughing in an easily defensible huddle.

Sans shuffled back to the shack they’d made home, ducked his head as he went in, and mumbled to Papyrus that the Doc wasn’t in that day.

‘who the fuck’s the doc?’ Papyrus had said.

So he hadn’t said it exactly like that. The message was about the same.

Sans figured he must’ve missed a memo. Maybe Asgore got tired of humoring the bastard and finally snuffed him out. Made everyone pretend they’d never heard of him. Sans probably wouldn’t even be able to find the dust. It was a good thing he hadn’t mentioned the disappearance to anyone but Papyrus, if there was something like that going on. He’ve been next.

(He was always so close to being next.)

But whatever feelings Sans had on the matter weren’t important. It just meant that what protection’d been offered them was gone. Papyrus didn’t seem concerned, but Sans felt something knot tight, tight in the depth of his chest, and he knew they had to go. Go somewhere far, far away, where no one would remember their connections to the crazy bastard, since someone was undoubtedly coming for them. If the Doc was dead and someone still had a bone to pick with him, they’d use the skeleton brothers for satisfaction. No one would stop them. Sans _couldn’t_ stop them.

Sans trusted Papyrus to hold his own, but he couldn’t—couldn’t risk it. Not against one of the Doc’s enemies. Maybe one day, when Papy _couldn’t_ be beat, but until then, Sans couldn’t _let_ him be beat.

There were a lot of things Sans couldn’t do. Protect Papyrus. Let Papyrus die.

A lot of complicated things he couldn’t let happen.

“bro, i’ve been thinkin’,” Sans said.

“OH GODS FORBID,” Papyrus responded, standing in the center of their shack, fully on guard, the same way he’d been ever since Sans walked in and mentioned the Doc. Sans laughed shakily, tugging his collar, trying to loosen it up.

“j-just hear me out,” he continued, holding up both hands in surrender and ducking his head a bit more. “i was thinkin’. you know. the capital’s a little small for us. too many losers t-trying to steal the spotlight. w-what if we moved somewhere a little more… not here? i-i mean, give you more room to shine, you know?”

You know?

He couldn’t do a lot of things, but even back then, he could run.

They moved to Snowdin.

Papyrus half self-appointed them as Snowdin Forest’s sentries for the Royal Guard, dueling the previous head sentry and sending their dust to Undyne as a resumé, claiming Sans as his lackey. Lackies were under their boss’ jurisdiction—that meant evaluation, condemnation, and punishment were entirely at the discretion of their immediate superior. Lackies went overlooked. No one fucking minded them. Some were even funny if they fucked up badly enough. Live your life as a running joke. (Sans breathed a little easier.)

The day Papyrus got the official acceptance letter—dirty with fingerprints that had dipped in his predecessor’s dust, the acceptance to a sentry station had been on the _spot_ —Papyrus already had a station built and two more in the works. They had a house in Snowdin, also stolen from their predecessors, and had just finished cleaning shop. Hawking the pricey, claiming the useful, and piling the useless trash in the front yard to set ablaze. A bonfire to welcome themselves to town. Give the neighbors a heads-up that there was a new face in town that dared to claim _fire_.

000

A few months later, the twitching started. The shortcuts _._

Sans woke up wondering what day it was. Where he was. Why he was there. Couldn’t remember. Couldn’t ask. Couldn’t show weakness.

His tremors grew worse. He’d had them so long, didn’t know when they’d started, but fuck, they’d never been this bad. On good days, he could finish a puzzle. On bad ones, he couldn’t even hold a spoon.

He never stopped blazing his left eye. Never told anyone his right eye was supposed to blaze along with it. Summoned and dismissed his blasters at random times, at the most useless times, with a methodicalness that bordered on obsessive.

Couldn’t explain what was happening, couldn’t explain how he knew _something_ was happening.

Didn’t mention it to anyone, waiting for them to notice. Waiting for someone to drop a hint that something was wrong. Went through his days pretending his hands had always fumbled over his coat zipper, so he just left it undone.

No one commented. No one seemed to notice.

Maybe it was all in his head. Maybe he was as crazy as the Queen.

(He’d talked to the Queen after moving to Snowdin. Her voice made him want to get on his knees and cower in a bush somewhere, but he’d talked to her—through a massive and heavily bewitched stone door, admittedly, but still. She never gave her name, so he had plausible deniability, but Sans knew it was her from the moment she commanded he stay still, the moment she demanded an explanation for why he was so close to her door, speaking loud enough to be heard. Even before she started crying and wailing about the voice of her lost child, Sans knew It was her. It just confirmed it. That was all.

No one else’s kid had been killed by a human since the war. No one would let it happen ever, ever again. They’d kill themselves off first if they had to.

They’d never forgive again.

It was all that human’s fault the Underground was kill or be killed. That the banished Queen lay screeching, pounding at the door, promising to rip Sans limb from limb if she ever broke out. Promising to kill every monster in the Underground.

Sans wished her good luck with that. He waited until she stopped screaming to sneak away.)

He started to hate numbers, math, science. Once upon a time, they’d seemed like a way out. Escape. Hope. They felt like jokes now.

Heh. _Logic_. What was that, anymore, when he set down his phone on the couch and found it upstairs beside his bed a minute later, no matter how certain he was to check and double check where he’d placed it. When he ate a crabapple and tossed the seeds in the trash, only to turn around and find the exact same crabapple sitting on the counter where he’d just picked it up from.

So Sans made his own bad jokes. Fudged his ways through days of confused nerves with puns and a frantic violence. Waiting for it to all derail. Waiting for a _something_ he couldn’t define to come and destroy it all, everything he’d managed to build.

(What had he managed to build?)

His tremors got worse. The twitching came back. The shortcuts arrived. Sans woke up without knowing where he was or how he’d gotten there. Sans woke without remembering he’d gone to sleep. The twitching. His tremors got worse. He kept blazing his eye—

Papyrus probably thought it was a miracle they’d survived their childhood.

000

Sans dreamed when he slept.

(Sans didn’t sleep.)

He saw worlds flickering behind his eyelids. Death raining down from the skies. Papyrus’ cape, twisting and abandoned on a tree branch. Alone in an underground of dust.

He dozed, curled under the wooden counter of his security post, because sleeping on the job summoned Papyrus faster than anything. And Sans would be berated. But he and his brother stayed alive.

000

Snowdin wasn’t the most dangerous part of the underground. It wasn’t like Hotland, which had snarled itself in civil war until hardly anyone lived there anymore. It wasn’t like Waterfall, where Undyne could’ve gotten kicked out of the Royal Guard and still had followers willing to stand with her against anyone. It wasn’t like the capital’s stringent order and lawfulness, where the shadow of Asgore saw all missteps, and you never knew if he’d decide to act on what he saw this time or let you go free another day.

No, Snowdin was half-lawful, half-anarchy, with a thin thread of respect for power holding it all together. The most populated place in the underground outside of the capital. That meant more fighting, but weaker battles.

Papyrus could’ve wiped out most of Snowdin within a few hours. Fewer, with Sans’ help. They were the law.

They didn’t wipe out Snowdin. It was nice to be respected; it was nice to have something like consistency, but they didn’t wipe out Snowdin because they needed monsters alive. They needed monsters alive for the army. For the invasion force. King Asgore only needed one more human soul to break the barrier, and the monsters hadn’t forgotten the last war.

This time they would have the advantage. Centuries of bitterness and preparation. The element of surprise. Humans had forgotten them by now—the confusion and terror of the last six souls made that clear enough—the humans wouldn’t know what to do until it was too late.

But they still needed bodies for a war. Canon fodder, if nothing else. But actual _weakness_ could not be tolerated. Could not weigh them down. Those too weak were good for EXP and little else. Don’t pollute the next generation of monsters with weak souls. Give your dust to the cause.

(Sans had been so close to that fate, so many times.)

Snowdin supplied most of those bodies. Snowdin had to be protected. That was why Sans spent so long in the forests each day, keeping eyes on the dogs and watching Papyrus coordinate search patterns for humans. For _threats_. For too-unruly monsters to be either turned to EXP, or shipped up to Alphys or the capital for the first wave of attack. Power was law, but there _was_ law, that was the important part. Couldn’t let someone too strong just go around killing everyone in the underground, after all—gotta think smart. Gotta know your priorities. It was kill or be killed down here, but playing by the rules and not doing stupid shit sure bought a lot of folks some extra time before ‘killed’ arrived.

Sans laughed, once, when he thought of that. He had dreams of dying. Memories. He could never fully grasp where they came from.

But he knew— with the same marrow-deep instinct that told him his brittle bones would shatter and turn to dust the moment he let down his guard—he knew the war would never come. He knew they would never reach the surface.

He knew they would be waiting on the seventh human forever.

He had seen it all before, even if he couldn’t _remember_ it. Not properly. (the world _twitched_ )

He was okay with that, though.

He was okay with that, as long as—as long as…

He couldn’t quantify the requirements. Couldn’t quite spell them out specifically. But sometimes, when he had nightmares, he would see Papyrus walk through his door, sit beside him on the bed, and lay a comforting hand on his backbone. It was a dream, _only_ a dream, but it gave him the hope. His single hope. All that held him together.

It was a useless hope. A stupid dream. But it got him up in the morning. The thought that, one day, he would be good enough to warrant a soft touch from Papyrus again.

He had time to get it right. To grow strong. To become something that might be useful one day. He had time to do right by Papyrus.

…

They would never make it to the surface.

They would never escape.

As long as he accepted that, he could—he could make it work. Their world had guidelines. As long as he knew a couple basic facts, it could make sense. He could make something like a plan around those few basic facts: They would never reach the surface. They would never escape. Things would never change. He could never risk sparing anyone, because one misstep was all it would take for him to come crumbling down. No second chances. No room for mistakes.

He trembled, holding himself together. Burned with the effort of keeping his eye blazing bright. This was the pits. They were all trapped down here together, and hell wasn’t getting any bigger, because they would never escape. Things would always be the actual, absolute worst, and the only way things would change would be if someone figured out how to make things even more terrible.

As long as he accepted that, as long as he kept his goals reasonable ( _please. alive together. please._ ) he could survive.

000

(he dreamed of a sunset.

The World Twitched.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> death
> 
> (this has been on my computer a long time and i'm still not updating fully on microwave grapes so this is my intermittent story fareWELL I AM GONE)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how does everything fall apart so quickly?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helped beta'd by askull4everyoccasion and namelessokami on tumblr

Sans almost missed them entirely.

Almost didn’t even realize it was a _human_ —not that he was ignorant. He’d heard about humans before. He knew what humans looked like, even if they came in as much variety as monsters did.

He could _feel_ the determination; that was something he’d always been told about—the sensation that was hard to describe, but you’d know it when you felt it. The presence. The pressure. The electric pull that screamed, _just watch me!_

But he almost forgot the human entirely, even though he was staring right at them from the other side of a withered black tree on his patrol route, watching them struggle through the snow.

He almost missed them, too busy looking at that _thing_ on the human’s shoulder.

(the memories came crashing back, and he couldn’t imagine how he ever forgot them.)

He remembered that fucking plant.

No, he remembered that fucking _flower_. The same shade of yellow—maybe even the same species—as the flowers King Asgore sent to houses in the capital to alert monsters of their impending doom.

He fired up his red eye, clenched his jaw, and snared the human right in front of the bridge.

“hey kid,” he said, walking slowly out of the drift behind the tree. He didn’t dare shortcut any closer, not now, not before getting a better look at that flower. (He remembered being tangled in vines.) “turn around. don’t you know how to greet your superior?”

The human kicked out of his magic, jumping rather than straining, breaking gravity’s hold on their soul. They bolted, but not fast enough. Sans got a look at the flower’s face.

Sans was fast, now. Fastest monster in the underground, if he wanted to be. There was no way the human could outrun him. There was no way that flower could escape.

There was no way Sans could defeat that flower.

Not with the way his knees were shaking. Not with the tremors in his hands.

(COWARD)

(Sans remembered jaws like pincers ripping off his arms. Remembered that kid sticking a knife between his ribs, piercing his soul. Remembered roots crawling up his legs. Remembered being dissected, inch by inch, bone by bone.)

(LAZY COWARD)

No. no, no, not this time.

Sans couldn’t kill the flower, but Papyrus could.

Sans walked around the nearest tree and walked out the other side of it in the path of Papyrus’ patrol route, just in time to see his brother’s red cape billowing over the hill.

“boss,” Sans said. Papyrus paused for a moment, but then quickened his pace, headed right for him.

If the waver in Sans’ voice hadn’t given him away, then the tremble up his spine and the sweat forming on his brow had. His body was hot with nerves. It wasn’t really sweat—it was the snow melting around him with how fucking hot he was burning. The flower’d barely been in the forest a minute and Sans was already losing it.

“SANS,” Papyrus boomed. “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS, YOU INDOLENT WHELP?”

“a human, boss,” Sans wheezed. “a human’s in the woods. h-headed towards your traps.”

Papyrus’ eyes glowed, their internal spark widening in the only expression of surprise he could muster.

“THEY MUST HAVE ESCAPED THE BANISHED QUEEN. CORRAL THEM TO ME. I WILL CORNER THEM IN THE FOG.”

Sans nodded, frantic and jittery. When Papyrus spun on his heel to walk down the steep edge of the hill, Sans let out a cry.

Papyrus scoffed. “WHAT WAS _THAT_ PUSTULOUS SOUND?”

“b-boss,” Sans said.

“SPEAK FASTER OR BE SILENT, IGNORAMUS.”

Sans swallowed the nervous glut of magic making its way up his throat. “s-sorry, b-boss, just… b-be careful of the f-flower.”

The stars in Papyrus’ eyes shrank to pinpricks.

“FLOWER,” he said.

Sans nodded again, only just slightly more put together this time. “k-kid’s got a f-flower on their shoulder. don’t let ‘em get you. th-they’re tougher than they look, boss.”

That was something to say in the underground.

Tougher Than They Look.

Papyrus scoffed again and stalked down the hillside as Sans watched.

It would be okay now.

It would be okay now.

Papyrus could do anything.

000

Papyrus never came out of the fog.

Sans tried to ignore it at first. Because of course Papyrus wouldn’t come back to Snowdin. He’d just killed the seventh human! He was going to take that thing’s husk and drag it back to Asgore—or take the soul for himself and keep quiet about it. Something. Why would he ever come back to their house in Snowdin if there were somewhere else he could be?

So Sans tried to wait it out in the house’s living room. The door was locked and locked tight, for what little good it’d do against a monster who _really_ wanted to break in, but it gave him a little sense of security to have the door locked, and the curtains drawn, and all the lights dimmed low, so it looked like no one was home.

His sneakers ran a shallow path in what was left of their carpeting. Every few minutes, he’d creep to the edge of the curtain and peer outside in a way that left him hard to spot unless someone was intentionally sitting across the street, watching for movement. Which no one was. Across the street was a fir tree with a pile of dust at its roots. The few people that were outside were making wide circles to avoid it. Sans wondered where that monster kid he’d spotted running around last week had gotten to.

Two hours passed, and Papyrus didn’t return.

Sans shuffled into the misted area. He flinched with every few steps, twice taking unintentional shortcuts and winding up back in their living room, having to repeat the grueling process all over again, retracing his footsteps in the snow.

He found no dust. He found no blood. He found no clothing. (He kept waiting for a dash of red. A cape caught on a tree branch. Tugging in the wind.)

He called the dogs out for a search party.

Papyrus would never forgive him.

Sans called for a search, regardless. Find the human. Kill the human. Papyrus is already in pursuit. If you sight him or find a trail, let me know.

(All the Dogs looked strangely uncomfortable at the orders. Sans ignored it. Tried to ignore it. Couldn’t really ignore it. Dogressa and Dogamy were talking about _puppies_. Greater Dog let out a low, moaning howl. Sans kept his eye flaring dangerously, straining with the effort, but knowing if he let his guard down now, with Papyrus missing, he was a dogbone for sure.)

Papyrus was nowhere in Snowdin. Not in the forest, not by the ruins, not in the town, not in the fog, and not in Grillby’s. That last one should not have come as a surprise, but it spoke some about how desperate Sans was that he even ventured to Grillby’s to check—Papyrus wanted to burn the place down with Grillbz’s own fire. If Sans ever wanted food from there, he had to sneak it out the back door and pray he wasn’t found out.

Sans still looked. Papyrus still wasn’t there. Grillby gave him a smile that made his marrow squirm. He left quickly, fled to the foggy area, tumbled into a snowdrift, and wept.

He stayed like that for a while. Curled in a drift, his internal fire spurting uncontrollably and melting the ice around him. The fog grew thicker with his heat.

Underground springs from Waterfall caused the fog, normally. Sans knew because he’d studied them, way back when, trying to find a way out of this hole. Trying to figure out the exact parameters of the barrier. How far underground it extended. If inanimate objects could pass through. If the mountain’s water and air were closed systems. All he’d really found out was that some underwater streams from Waterfall ran in this area, heating the dirt enough that, between the underground water and the normal river, this place always had a heavy fog unlike anything else in Snowdin.

He’d kinda sympathized with the area, once, even though it was Papyrus’ haunt. Too hot on the inside, too cold on the out. Always sweating, crying, totally unstable, and not really good for anything but an interesting fact. Something Papyrus hung around, for some fucking reason. Something totally worthless that Papyrus gave a smidgen of notice to, sometimes.

(Sans remembered a head tumbling onto the path. A strangled yelp. Arms outstretched. _Where was your weapon? Why didn’t you defend yourself?_ )

(he remembered a hand on his spine,)

Sans rose from his snowdrift and wiped his eye.

(and he was filled with loV **E.)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing's worse than slowly falling apart at the seams


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans goes to Waterfall to report his brother missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh balls folks. I didn't realize I had this chapter finished. This is probably about the halfway point.

Undyne did not favor either skeleton, but Waterfall was her protectorate, and politics was everything. So the same way she’d have to inform them of her presence in Snowdin, Sans had to inform her of his presence in Waterfall.

He’d never come to Waterfall without Papyrus with him in some way or another. It turned out, he still hadn’t.

“What the fuck is your idiot doing?” she hissed, slamming a fist just a few inches from Sans’ bright red eye, cracking part of the rock cliff he was pressed against. She was in full plate armor, helmet and all, but Sans could still feel her one-eyed glare through the metal. He tried to meet it with his own.

“what the fuck are you taking about?” There, not even a stutter, even though he could feel the anxiety knotting in his chest.

“There’s a _human_ in the underground!” Undyne snarled. Sans thought he saw a flash of white teeth through the helmet’s gap. “The seventh human! _And they’re not dead yet!_ ”

Sans grit his own teeth, clenching his fists. “boss went after them. i ain’t seen him since. ‘s why i’m here. trying to figure out what the little brat did.”

“I’ll tell you what that little brat’s done.” Definitely a flash of teeth this time. Her helmet pressed so close, Sans could feel her breath on his skull as she held him against the rock. 1 HP, 1 HP, 1 HP. Did she know? Would she even have to _want_ to off him? “That little _brat_ has your brother following them around like a fucking pawn!”  


“ _what?_ ” Sans—Sans’ voice when high. That didn’t happen, usually. A hot, sticky dread rolled through him. “where is he? where did you see them? i’ll go stop them—”  


He realized his mistake when he saw the cold gleam in Undyne’s eyes.

“ _You_ won’t be going anywhere,” she said, ending her sentence with a crunch of her needle-like teeth. Gripped his hoodie. She wrenched him around, throwing him away from the cliff and into the open. “But if you’re that desperate, maybe I’ll let you help me capture the human _and_ your traitor brother." 

She summoned a spear.

Sans dodged.

“Stand still!”

Her GREEN attack came out in a wave. No chance to avoid it. He concentrated on breathing, instead, like Papyrus had told him. Undyne didn’t usually let people watch her fights, or if she did, she didn’t use her GREEN attack. She let that be a myth, the same way Sans and Papyrus had their rumored BLUE attacks, but let the actual content of those attacks—and that there were actually _two different versions_ —slip by the wayside. It was a kind of trump card. People saw her spears or their white bones and thought that was the main power.

In the underground, freezing up wasn’t a response that got most people out alive, unless you caught Doggo alone. Most flight responses didn’t get you too far. All that was left in the underground were people who fought and people who worked well under pressure.

Sans worked terribly under pressure. He was just pretty used to fearing for his life at this point, so he did shit anyway.

The GREEN attack washed over him like a bucket of cold water, knotting his legs and rooting his feet in place. When it passed, he found himself trapped in a circle with only a sliver of tightly-sealed magic in front of him to give any hope. He could actually feel the shift inside as he gave up and his mindset slid into, _okay, I guess I’ve gotta survive like this for a little while_.

That seemed to piss Undyne off the most—the fact that Sans didn’t panic when he found himself bubbled. The fact that he’d grabbed the edge of the magical overlap and knew to jerk it in the way of her oncoming spears. The way the spears shattered against the overlap. Her attacks sped up.

His eye blazed. (dodge dodge dodge) He hauled the overlap around a second time, cracking it against the spear coming at his back just a moment before it’d have been too late. The gasterblasters wouldn’t fit inside his allowed circumference and he didn’t have a spare moment to summon his bone barrages.

(no room for mistakes)

So he went on. Wondered if there were a shortcut that could turn him sideways or from front to back any faster than he could turn himself. Lost the thought as soon as it came. No shortcuts he could use, here. No room. Too small. He’d lose his grip. Lose his head. Forget where he was facing. He’d die, and his EXP would go towards hurting Papyrus.

He twisted the barrier around again, broke two spears, and ducked a mirror volley from behind.

It wasn’t cold enough in Waterfall for him to ‘sweat,’ so the tell on his straining body temperature was gone. Even as he felt himself overheating, he just kept smiling, his jitters and nerves covered up by movement. He couldn’t think long enough to form words, couldn’t even consider his stutter, just focusing on _don’t get hit don’t get hit don’t get hit_ until Undyne lost what little patience she had.

She roared. She lunged, a spear in hand, fizzling with power.  
  
Sans had been facing left. With a grunt, he hauled the magical overlap hard to the right, and met Undyne’s spear head-on. 

The barrier around him shattered, and Sans was gone.

Fastest monster in the Underground.

He reappeared at the foot of the cliff, where grass were easily tall enough to hide in. Undyne’s howls of rage echoed far above his head.

The tremors took him.

He sank to his knees in the grass, legs giving out under him, spine terribly exposed with no one to watch his back. He tucked his knees against his ribs and curled in a ball. A shaking hand dragged his hood over his head, and the other covered his mouth, muffling his cries.

He heard a rustling in the bushes beside him, and bit down on his hand with his golden tooth.

The world fell away as he slipped through another shortcut—one that’d take him farther away—by rolling backwards. One grass patch to another. Just enough momentum to slip him through the cracks of—whatever. He didn’t focus on the details of the Jump. Just that he had to get away.

He emerged a moment later on the cliffs of—it took him a moment to place his surroundings—of the pathway to Hotland. He was still in Waterfall, but the hollow of the mountain was jagged, here, full of outcroppings and the last vestiges of slick clay. A secondary, smaller cave set into one of those outcroppings led to the first lava pool of Hotland. He had a sometimes-sentry station inside. He supposed he wouldn’t ever be stationed there again, since Undyne wanted his head.

He pressed his backbone against the cliff wall of his outcrop, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe.

000

He fell asleep.

He dreamed of yellow and blue.

The world t-tw-twi-twit-twitched.

000

He woke.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, or where he was, or why.

His skull ached.

There was a fight going on in front of him.

Things slotted into place. His internal fog wasn’t as bad as usual. The last few days, it had been— still bad. But not as bad as it had been in the past. The fight in front of him brought it all back, though—why he was on a cliff above the tunnel towards Hotland. Why his hands were shaking with fatigue. Why he felt like he desperately needed something to eat.

It didn’t explain why the human wasn’t a smear on the ground, yet. It certainly didn’t fucking explain why they seemed to be countering Undyne’s spears like they knew where the attacks were coming from before even being thrown.

He reacted to the fight without meaning to, scrambled away from the edge of the cliff, his breath coming fast and magic sputtering from his fingers before he his brain caught up and told him lighting up and drawing attention to himself right now was the _last_ thing he wanted to do—

—but someone still saw him. 

Not Undyne. Not the human brat. Someone bright, and orange, and _familiar_ , and oh holy fuck—

Sans scrambled down the side of the crag, half tumbling and half shortcuts between pebbles, until he landed somewhere behind a pair of boulders that hid them from the sparks of battle not ten feet away.

“SANS!!” Oh, man, Sans had missed that screech. It’d only been maybe a bit over a day, he thought. It felt like way longer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been away from Paps for so long. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!”

“l-lookin’ for you,” Sans said, edging closer to Papyrus than a shortcut would’ve allowed.

“YOUR EYE IS OUT.”

Sans fired up his eye immediately, despite the exhaustion already taking hold. He panted—as much as a skeleton could pant—maintaining it. “s-s-orry.”

“GO HOME THIS INSTANT, CHARLATAN,” said Papyrus, his booming voice oddly lowered, perhaps because of his interest in the fight. He kept glancing around the rock at it in quick, measuring looks. “THAT IS AN ORDER FROM YOUR SUPERIOR. DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW TO TAKE AN ORDER FROM A SUPERIOR? RETURN HOME AND DO NOT VENTURE FORTH FOR ABSOLUTELY ANY REASON UNTIL MY AUSPICIOUS RETURN.”

“i’m gonna be waitin’ a long time then, boss, because once undyne’s done with the human, she’s gonna kill you,” Sans hissed, his hand twitching out in desire to grab Papyrus by the gloves, but he resisted, twisting his hands in front of him, instead. “n-no-not that you’d let her, b-but boss, c’mon, let’s at least hit her on our own terf, y-y’know?”

“THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL NOT DO SOMETHING SO DISGRACEFUL.”

“a-ain’t no shame in winnin’ a fight,” Sans said. “c-c’mon, bro, there’s no time. either stick undyne right now, or let’s get her on our own terms. she’s _pissed_ and that kid ain’t gonna last much longer.”

“THE HUMAN WILL SURVIVE.”

Sans did a double take. His skull throbbed.

Papyrus wasn’t even looking at him. His dark eyes were focused squarely on the fight in front of them. The human was still trapped in Undyne’s sphere, and they—they were whipping the barrier around with their fists, the same way Sans had done. He felt his jaw drop—just slightly. That fucking human was using his trick!

“THE HUMAN WITNESSED YOUR BATTLE WITH UNDYNE FROM THE BUSHES,” Papyrus said. Sans choked. “THEY ARE A JUDICIOUS STUDENT, AND COMMENDABLY PERCEPTIVE.”

Sans choked again.

Papyrus hadn’t taught the human the trick with the shield.

Papyrus had _watched_ while _Sans was being attacked_ so the human could learn the trick with the shield.

“i-i-i,” was all he got out. 

That wasn’t. He wouldn’t. He _wouldn’t_. 

“NOW GO HOME, SANS,” Papyrus continued, oblivious to his words. “I SHALL RETURN WHEN OUR PURSUIT HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.”

That. That must’ve been it. That must’ve been it.

“bro,” Sans’ voice was high and shrill. He took two careful steps back. There was no telling what Papyrus would do in this state. “bro, th-the kid’s done something to ya. Th-they’ve fucked with your _head_. y-you’re not thinkin’ straight. they’ve done something to ya, this isn’t _you_.”

“SANS,” Papyrus finally turned to him again, eye sockets narrowed and arms crossed in front of him. Not that Sans would dare touch him, especially not right now. “GO. HOME. THIS THEORY OF YOURS IS AN ABOMINATION AND I SHAN’T HEAR OF IT ANY LONGER. YOU WILL SEE REASON WHEN I HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN TO YOU, BUT RIGHT NOW, I DO NOT. THE HUMAN WILL SUCCEED, AND IT IS MY INTENT TO AID THEM IN THEIR PROCESSION UNTIL SUCH A TIME AS A CONCLUSION IS REACHED. YOU WERE CORRECT IN YOUR ASSERTION THAT THEY WERE MORE THAN THEY INITIALLY APPEARED, HOWEVER, NOW YOUR COMMENTARY IS UNWARRANTED AND NAUSEATINGLY INCORRECT.”

“the flower,” Sans said, eye widening. It ached. He ached. His red eye throbbed in his skull. “is that fucking flower still alive?”

It seemed to catch Papyrus off guard. “IT IS LIKEWISE ASSISTING THE HUMAN ON THEIR QUEST.”

“oh no,” Sans rubbed his hands over his cheekbones. “oh no, oh no, oh no, Paps, why didn’t you k i l l   t h a t   t h i n g?”

Papyrus blinked at him, eyes narrowing. “THE PLANT IS INNOCUOUS. THE HUMAN HAS BEEN ACQUAINTED WITH IT FAR LONGER THAN I, THEREFORE, I HAVE DECIDED TO TRUST THEIR JUDGMENT ON THE MATTER.”

Sans shook and dropped his hands to his sides. Undyne let out a roar in the distance. _Why won’t you—ngahh!_ “you don’t trust anyone, you don’t _compliment_ anyone!”

He scuttled back further, his legs hardly holding him up anymore. Papyrus made a half turn towards him. That wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. Undyne screamed again. The human took off running.

“I DON’T—? —SANS!”

Sans turned on his heel and ran the other direction.

“it’s okay, Papyrus!” Sans he shouted over his shoulder. “i-i’ll get you out of there! i won’t let them get away with this, just hold on!”

“ _SANS!!_ ”

000

Even when Papyrus was brainwashed, Sans couldn’t ever fully disobey him. Even when Papyrus was brainwashed, Sans was still loyal.

Sans went back to Snowdin.

He appeared inside the front door and, even though he never went into Papyrus’ room with a shortcut, he—he didn’t think he’d make it, otherwise.

The den spun around him. Sans began to fall. He landed in Papyrus’ bed.

Papyrus’ bed was a coffin. A fucking coffin. Because it was terrifying, Sans supposed. Or because Papyrus figured death had to be a million times better than living. Or because he’d heard that coffins were what Asgore put the captured human’s bodies in after the souls were taken out, and Papyrus wanted to have that sort of symbol of power in his house. Or because Papyrus was secretly the most dramatic person in the world. Sans didn’t know. At least there was a nice mattress in it. Sans’ mattress had springs sticking out.

There was a bookshelf on the far wall, totally filled up, because Papy weren’t no slouch. All the covers and titles had been painted over in black, so Sans couldn’t actually see what was being read, but he still recognized the shape and size of most of them, but only because he’d seen them before—sometime. Papyrus could’ve been reading happy stories about bunnies, for all anyone knew. He could’ve been reading about metaphysics. He could’ve been reading about puzzle-making. Could’ve been a book full of word jumbles. Cookbooks. Torture devices. Anything.

All Papyrus’ spare bones were meticulously stacked in the corner. His clothes were all pressed and hung up in the closet. His desk was covered in diagrams and little movable figurines, where he worked out tactics and strategies. Sans would’ve given anything to have Papyrus back in this awful room, screaming at him about not sticking to the plan, because Sans couldn’t remember the plan, because he’d woken up and not known who, or where, or—

(The world shuddered. Sans ignored it. His head ached.)

He touched his tooth. His golden tooth. Gold, right down to the root. Lying on Papyrus’ bed, feeling the mattress beneath his bones, watching the walls go fuzzy, wishing he had something to eat. He touched his golden tooth.

Sans had always been weak. One HP in a world filled with LOVE.

It was a _miracle_ he’d survived losing his tooth.

Papyrus had found Sans in the forest, three weeks into their sentry stint, buried in snow, shivering, with his skull dangerously cracked. Blood all down his face. He was dying, crumbling, slowly, because he hadn’t been fast enough. Maybe he’d’ve had a chance if he ever got control of the shortcuts, but he hadn’t. If he survived, it’d be his first priority, he swore, because he just wasn’t fast enough. Not faster than Temmie. Not fast enough to avoid his fucking _face_ getting—

Papyrus found Sans in the woods, hyperventilating and shoving rapidly-melting snow into his mouth, trying to numb the pain. Papyrus found him in what was left of the bloody snowdrift, scoffed, and yanked Sans to his feet. Shoved part of his red cape in Sans’ mouth, staunching the flow. He dragged Sans back to Snowdin, to their residence.                                   

Papyrus lay him down and filled his cracks with gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, but thanks for sticking with me


End file.
